President: We are grateful to Austria for support in protecting sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state

8 February 2018 - 17:14

In the course of the working visit to Austria, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko discussed the situation in the east of our country with President of Austria Alexander Van der Bellen and thanked Austria for the assistance to our state.

“A significant part of our negotiations was devoted to the situation in the east of our country and the Russian aggression against our state. I am very grateful for several initiatives, ranging from humanitarian aid to participation of Austrian specialists in humanitarian mine clearance or facilitating access to schools, kindergartens,” Petro Poroshenko noted in the joint press conference.

“We really appreciate that, as well as the fact that Austria provided almost 5 million euros of humanitarian aid to Ukraine,” the President said.

The Head of State noted that Austria had provided an opportunity to undergo rehabilitation for the Ukrainian wounded warriors. “This is a position of a true friend,” he stressed.

Petro Poroshenko also thanked for Austria’s support of the Ukrainian initiatives to deploy a peacekeeping mission under the mandate of the UN Security Council and stressed the importance of that.

“I would like to emphasize that Austria is closer to Kyiv than to Brussels in terms of geography. This demonstrates once again how close we are in Europe. On the one hand, it facilitates our cooperation, and on the other hand, we understand that any point of instability, any aggression in Ukraine is very close to the center of Europe,” the President emphasized.

In his turn, President of Austria Alexander Van der Bellen stressed that Austria was ready to offer any types of humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

“We want peace in the east of Ukraine to be established as soon as possible,” he said, emphasizing the importance of fulfillment of the Minsk agreements.